Student shuts blog after libel threat

Reporters Without Borders says a student in Singapore was forced to shut down his blog this week for fear of a libel action by the head of a government body.

The media rights group warned that "such intimidation could make the country's blogs as timid and obedient as the traditional media".

"Threatening a libel suit is an effective way to silence criticism and this case highlights the lack of free expression in Singapore, which is among the 20 lowest-scoring countries in our worldwide press freedom index," it said.

"We especially support bloggers because they often exercise a freedom not seen in the rest of a country's media."

The threat of prosecution came from Philip Yeo, chairman of the government's Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), which grants research scholarships. He claimed the organisation had been defamed in a blog by Jiahao Chen, a Singapore student finishing his studies in the United States.

Writing under the pseudonym of Acid Flask, he criticised Yeo and the A*STAR scholarship system. He also agreed to his remarks being reproduced in the online Electric New Paper.

Yeo sent him several emails demanding that he delete all blogs mentioning him or A*STAR and threatening legal action if he did not.

A few days later, Acid Flask shut down the blog and posted a message of apology to Yeo in its place. Other Singapore blogs that had reproduced the remarks quickly afterwards posted apologies or themselves closed down.